Translation: “But Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered the re-introduction in teaching the study of Castilian. It’s about time. Hopefully the new government of Benigno Aquino follow this law and that the Filipinos will join again to the large Hispanic family”

]]>By: zigfredhttp://www.zdiaz.com/2008/07/finally-the-use-of-filipino-dialect-in-philippine-courts-is-now-being-experimented/comment-page-1/#comment-8100
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:00:40 +0000http://www.zdiaz.com/?p=371#comment-8100Felipe: Thanks for the input. However let me correct a misconception. Not all Philippine laws are written in Spanish. Philippine law is a mixture of Spanish and U.S laws. Most of our Civil Code and Penal laws more particularly the Revised Penal code is based in Spanish. However our Constitution, Legal ethics, Constitutional laws and Labor laws are mostly American in nature. It is also true that in the Philippines there are thousands of volumes published in Spanish however most judges rarely refers to this as most cannot even speak Spanish. However there is a provision in our laws which states that in case of doubt, we must refer to the original Spanish text, but this is seldom done nowadays. In fact I can only recall a single case in Criminal law wherein our Supreme Court has referred to the Spanish text. (This was done years ago) You cannot any more use Spanish in our courts as nobody understands that nowadays. Spanish is not anymore taught in the colleges.

A lot of Filipino words though have Spanish origins in fact our numbers is based on Spanish (uno, dos tres, etc.), but most Filipinos can’t speak fluent Spanish although most of us know a smattering of Spanish words, however most can’t construct a cohesive understandable sentence in Spanish. There is a place though somewhere in Mindanao where the still speak Spanish. They call it “Chavacano” or as other people call it “broken Spanish.” That dialect has the most similarity to Spanish than any other dialect in the Philippines.

I wish though that we were all taught Spanish side by side with English as Spanish sounds so elegant for me. I wish every Filipino could somehow converse in Spanish, but that’s just not the case anymore here. It may had been the case in the early or mid 1900s but not since the turn of the 19th century. The old people could probably converse in Spanish. (My grandparents speaks it as it was taught to them) but Gen X and Gen Y of Filipinos can’t speak it anymore.

I am translating what I have written to Spanish so that you could understand. However take note, I am not doing the translation, Google has done it, so we have the wonders of technology to be thankful for. heheheh I may have a Spanish Family name and probably a little bit of Spanish blood and may know to construct a few conversational sentences in Spanish but I really can’t carry out a long conversation in Spanish. Perhaps one day I might learn it.

Translation courtesy of Google: “It should be noted that Philippine laws were written in Castilian and that there are still thousands of volumes published in Spanish to which judges must refer the archipelago. Moreover, you can still use the language of Cervantes in the courts of that country.”

]]>By: pauhttp://www.zdiaz.com/2008/07/finally-the-use-of-filipino-dialect-in-philippine-courts-is-now-being-experimented/comment-page-1/#comment-2866
Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:52:03 +0000http://www.zdiaz.com/?p=371#comment-2866“But for some part of the country it might become a boon instead of a bane.”
shouldn’t it be “it might be a bane instead of a boon”?
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